Thursday, February 21, 2013

Adolescence 2.0 The Broken Puzzle

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

~ Oscar Wilde

Jean.

Jean’s feet gripped the floor of
the car and her knees bent occasionally as the train rumbled from stop to stop.
The rest of the passengers held onto the railings and bars above. The one
space available to grab required she perform some unnatural arm bend. Never in
the mood to touch four strangers at the same time or look like some strange
yoga acrobat, she kept her hands in her black leather jacket’s pockets. Subway
experience taught her the delicate art of balancing one’s body while in fast
and jerky motion.

A popular hip-hop hit exploded from
a commuter’s Beats headphones and someone attempted to cough out a lung, heart,
and then some. Hopefully, the germs planned to stay away from here. Aside from
that, no one talked. The silence made
Jean more aware of the conversation she planned to strike up with Blue Bird.
Everyone would pretend not to listen, but an audience served only to raise her
excitement and nervousness—feelings she fed on for power.

“Why are you wearing a shirt from an
ex? That is, if you don’t mind me asking,” she said.

Blue Bird
chuckled. “You know I asked myself the same question today, and I still have no
answer. I’m Trinity by the way.” She
held out a hand, which Jean gladly accepted.

The woman had a firm, confident
handshake. Good sign. Her skin felt smooth too, and Jean held on a second
longer before the release.

“Jean.” She
gestured at the shirt. “That’s um that old model, right? Twiggy I think her
name was…”

Trinity
nodded. “Yeah. My ex and I were big fans of her, and uh she surprised me with
this shirt. Valerie’s an artist and teaches art to middle school children.”
Blue Bird’s brown eyes softened as if she remembered a good memory.

Twiggy

Jean didn’t
blink. She had suspected from her appearance that Trinity was probably queer. “Valerie
sounds like a pretty awesome person.”

“Yes…she
is.”

Whoever this ex was, Blue Bird
clearly still had strong feelings for her.

The train
slowed to a halt a third time, and a third time Jean’s heart sank in fear that
her new acquaintance would leave. It was her least favorite part of people
collecting in the subway. However, she had a method of never wasting an
opportunity.

“I’m sorry,
but this is my stop. It was really nice chatting with you. I can feel you’re a
good spirit.”

“Blue Bird,
wait!” Jean bit her tongue and heat rushed to her face. The nickname slipped
out of her mouth without consent.

“Okay, thanks
for not being weirded out. Please take this.” Jean gave her business card. “Maybe we can talk again or catch coffee
together or something. Anyway, it was nice talking to you too. Thanks.”

“Ah, okay.
Thanks?” Trinity laughed, made the card disappear in her blazer, and walked out
the train to her destination with smooth confidence in each step.

Jean sighed
and hoped Blue Bird would call and not chuck her card in the nearest trashcan. She
usually caught people in her aura, but this time Trinity’s strong, positive
vibes wrapped around her and made her feel safe and calm, a feeling she wanted
to last longer.

By the time she made it to Copley
station, her shopping mate called to cancel their meeting.

“Claire, I’m so sorry. I forgot how
atrocious the Green Line was.”

“It’s okay. We can meet up next
time. See you in the office tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See ya later.” Jean ended
the call and sighed. Another lonely Sunday afternoon waited for her. Now, she
had to take the Green Line again to return home. She groaned and decided to
treat herself to a big fatty donut before the commute back home.

Jean walked
into the elevator of her building and held her breath as usual in a battle
against the stench of aged urine and greasy Chinese food that assaulted her
nostrils. Stairs were out of the question. She lived on the twelfth floor of a
housing project close to Boston Medical Center, and any attempt to climb stairs
would require an oxygen tank strapped to her waist. Getting back into
shape remained stuck on her list of goals to accomplish this month. And she
could not blame it on the lack of money to pay for a gym subscription. YouTube
provided tons of exercise videos that she could do in her small living room,
but her heart was not into it. Oddly enough, her small frame and adherence to a
vegetarian diet were her biggest obstacles to exercise. She liked what she saw
in the mirror and praised her ability to fit into size four skinny jeans. She
just had to convince herself that exercise was not mainly for weight loss, but
for healthy living.

Yeah, yeah, Jean thought and rolled her
eyes. I’ll do it when I want to. The
elevator rang at her floor and she rushed out with a deep exhale. She fumbled
through her bag for her keys and cursed when they refused to reveal themselves.
She made another of countless, yet unheeded mental notes to put them someplace
more accessible. They finally turned up. With a frustrated sigh, she let
herself into the tiny one bedroom apartment. When she closed the door behind
her, Jean stood for a minute and looked around.

It was a neat but bare space with
an easy chair for the living room that she bought at a thrift store; no television
because she watched what little shows she enjoyed on her laptop; and a folding
table and chair to eat dinner and do her writing and work. Her bedroom was no
better. She had a mattress with an iron bedframe that she also snagged from the
thrift, and big storage boxes held her clothes and undergarments instead of a
dresser. Books lined and were stacked on the floors of her bedroom and living
room. Everything else went into the closet, along with the two large suitcases
she left home with.

Boston Medical Center

She hung her back on the hook in
the wall and went into the kitchen to get a drink. Her fridge showed off four
boxes of extra firm tofu, half a gallon of almond milk, three tomatoes, two oranges,
and five apples. She had to have her apples. She took a bottle of Perrier
sparkling water and lay on the easy chair. Her eyes spotted the
calendar she put up on the wall across from the chair and she nearly choked on
her water. Two weeks!

“Two weeks!” she said again to no
one. Her heart rapped against her chest and she put the bottle down on the
floor to massage her temples. Her least favorite curse word tumbled out of her
mouth for a good minute before she finally collected herself and stopped.

Her parents were coming in two
weeks. Her parents who thought she lived with a nice roommate in a nice, safe
neighborhood with a solid publishing job that included great health benefits
when in fact she had no roommate, lived in a relatively unpleasant area, and
had three jobs, one of them freelance, with no benefits. Thankfully she applied
for Massachusetts’s health insurance and was approved for the state’s
insurance. The truth of her reality, however, poked her sides with guilt for
spewing the well knitted lies to her Mother and Father just so she could
convince them to let her leave Hartford and make it on her own. She never told
them her real dreams were to become a successful writer, blogger, and
eventually a media mogul with her own media company because that proved too
outrageous and unrealistic for them. If they came here and saw how she really lived,
they would ignite a storm, drag her butt back to their house in Connecticut,
and connect with her some of their friends to get her a real job, which meant
sitting in an office, being miserable, and devoid of all creativity. In other
words, death.

No, that reality must not come true. She
jumped out of her seat and opened her MacBook to check her email, but knew she
nothing of value would show up because she already checked it five times on her
Android. Her endless queries for roommates on Craigslist turned up with such
unreliable characters or rent payments she couldn’t afford that she gave up for
a while and let time slip through her fingers like liquid. Exhaustion and
frustration sat on each shoulder and she slammed her forehead against the black
folding table and moaned.

For once,
she wished someone would collect her.

Jean's cell
phone sung what she considered the most dramatic segment of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Act II: Scene. She checked the I.D., Mr. Firebreather, and sighed. Why the
hell was work calling? It’s Sunday! Leave
me alone!

“Hello, David.”

“Jean, hi.
I was wondering if you could cover the SVAWomen’s Benefit tonight at Cambridge?
You know the one. We talked about it on Friday’s meeting. It’s supposed to
start at seven. Claire said she couldn’t make it. Sick with a bad cold.”

Jean
blinked repeatedly at her editor’s revelation. “Wait. Claire is sick?” Was this girl for real?

“Yes, can
you make it tonight? I know it’s last minute, but it’s important we cover
this. I’ve already told Claire to send you her interview questions and notes. No
one else can do it, Jean.”

Er, so I was your last choice, which you
also already made for me. She sighed. “Yeah, sure. I can cover for her.” Her
motivation right now was solely money.

“Thanks!
You’re a doll. See you tomorrow.” Click.

She
cringed. There he went again with that doll reference. Jean stole a glance at
the clock. She had less than three hours to get ready. And the benefit was in
Cambridge. How did she manage to spend the whole day in the subway today?

Thirty
minutes before Jean made herself ready to leave, her phone rang again. What
now? Did Claire remember she wasn’t sick and changed her mind? Her phone’s
screen, however, displayed an unknown number. Always excited to talk to
strangers, she slid the bar to talk and hoped it wasn’t another telemarketer.

“Hello,
this is Jean.”

“Hey, Jean.
It’s Trinity.”

“Blue Bird!
Hey!”

Trinity
laughed. “You sound very excited.”

“You have
no idea,” Jean said and sat down with the widest grin she could muster.

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"It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live." - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

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